Parksville residents asked for input on pot regulations

PARKSVILLE – The federal government is expected to legalize cannabis for recreational and medicinal use by this summer.

There are still questions at the municipal government level as to what they will be responsible for. The City of Parksville’s director of administrative services Keeva Kehler says they have launched a survey asking for opinions on what local by-laws should include.

“There’s quite a few different options and approaches that council can take,” according to Kehler. “They just want to get a sense of how much regulation people would like to see and what specific issues they want to see regulated. We can actually prohibit certain things as well. Before we do that we just want to make sure that that’s the right thing for this community.”

Kehler say they are looking for a broad sense of what people would like to see as there are still some questions and uncertainty over what municipal responsibilities will be.

“We have to listen to what the province tells us we need to do”, she said. “I think with their licensing at the provincial level, they will be mandating a local government role so we may not have the ability to regulate everything that the community would like to see.”

The survey can be found on the city web site. Paper copies are available at city hall.